Ras Malai, Rasmalai, Bengali Dessert

Rasmalai is a Bengali dessert consisting of soft paneer balls immersed in chilled creamy milk. Like Rasgullas, Rasmalai is also made with homemade cheese known as "paneer" or "chana". Instead of being soaked in sugar syrup like Rasgullas, Rasmalai is soaked in sweet, flavored milk.

Course
Dessert

Cuisine
Indian

Prep Time10minutes

Cook Time40minutes

Total Time50minutes

Servings6people

Ingredients

For Patties

4cupsmilk

1/4cuplemon juice

1-1/2cupssugar

4-1/2cupswater

Milk For Rasmalai

3cupsmilk

2-1/2tbspsugar

1/8tspcrushed cardamom

1tbspsliced almonds and pistachios to garnish

Method

Making Paneer

Mix lemon juice in half a cup of hot water and keep aside.

Boil the milk in a heavy bottomed over medium-high heat, stirring frequently making sure milk do not burn on the bottom of the pan.

As the milk comes to a boil, add the lemon juice slowly and stir the milk gently. The curd will start separating from the whey, turn off the heat.

Once the milk fat has separated from the whey, drain the whey using a strainer line with cheesecloth or muslin cloth.

Wrap the curd in a muslin cloth, rince under cold water, and squeeze well. This process takes out the sourness from the lemon.

To take out the excess water squeeze the cloth, or press the wrapped paneer under a heavy pan for about one hour. Taking the right amount of water out of the paneer is the most important part of this recipe.

To check if enough water is out of the paneer, take a little piece of paneer on your palm and rub with your fingers. After rubbing the paneer for about 15-20 seconds, you should be able to make a firm but smooth ball.

Once the paneer is drained, place on a dry, clean surface and knead the paneer for 3-4 minutes until the paneer is almost rolls into smooth soft dough. Knead the paneer by dragging the palm of your hand hard on the paneer. Keep scooping it back to togather and knead more. Your palm will be little greasy.

Making the Rasmalai:

Divide the dough into 12 equal parts and roll them in smooth balls.

To make the balls apply some prassure at the first and then release when forming the balls, lightly press to make about 3/4" patty shape.

Mix the sugar and water in a pressure cooker on medium high heat and bring to a boil.

Add the paneer balls and close the pressure cooker. After the pressure cooker starts steaming, turn the heat to medium and cook for about seven minutes.

Make sure the cooker is large enough to accommodate the finished rasgullas patties, as they will expand to about double in the volume while cooking in the syrup!

Close the heat and wait a few minutes befor opening the pressure cooker. Pour cold water over the cooker before opening. Take out the patties from the syrup and squeeze them lightly,and keep aside.

Boil the milk in a frying pan on medium heat until the milk reduce to about 2 cups. Make sure to frequently stir the milk as the milk burns easily in bottom of the pan.

Add the sugar and the Rasmalai patties in milk. Let it cook for few minutes. Add the cardamom and mix in. Garnish with sliced almonds and pistachios.

I just made this and it came out great! Again, thank you for the recipe! I just wanted to provide some notes for others, which may help when making this dish:

I didn’t have enough 2% milk for both the cheese and the milk liquid they sit in, so I used 2% milk for the cheese, and 1% milk for the liquid they sit in. This turned out fine because (a) I used an organic milk which is rich (so the 1% less fat wasn’t noticeable), and (b) I did reduce the milk at the end — though this didn’t do much, I’m sure it helped.

When doing the step with putting the cheese patties in the syrup mixture to cook, I didn’t have a pressure cooker. Instead, I put them in a saucepan and let them boil for 7-10 minutes. I checked their texture while they were cooking, to monitor it, and took them out when they seemed ready. Doing it like this, they turned out fine — so don’t worry if you don’t have a pressure cooker!

Kneading the cheese to make it smooth, both before and after pressing it to let out the excess liquid, is absolutely necessary if you want a finely-grained cheese patty with a good consistency. Do not skip these steps! I cannot stress this enough! They will not be proper cheese patties without doing this. — I spread mine with my hands against a cutting board over and over until it spread like light cream cheese against the board, and mine came out perfect in the end. I’d suggest doing the same.

In terms of the ras malai being sweet or not — which I noticed someone commented about — the cheese patties themselves are not sweet, nor are they supposed to be. (I say this not from my experience cooking this for the first time, but from the extensive experience I’ve had eating ras malai at authentic family-owned restaurants). The milk mixture they sit in with the cardamom and sugar is what’s sweet. By letting the patties sit in the milk mixture overnight in the fridge to cool, the flavor and sweetness gets soaked up. If you eat them right out of the pot, hot, they will not taste right — for so many reasons. This cooling step is absolutely necessary! I tasted the patties hot before they were finished and they tasted too dense and cheesy and they weren’t sweet at all. After letting them sit overnight in the milk mixture, they were lighter, fluffier, and had soaked up more of the sweetened, flavored milk mixture. Also, when eating them, I take a piece of one of the cheese patties and then dip my spoon in the milk mixture and eat both together — this helps to add to the flavor.

I loved the way mine turned out, and so did my family. Thank you again for sharing! I hope my tips and observations help others! 🙂

Namaste
I love your culture & so as your food!
Ras malai is my favorite desert as well. I noticed in your video that the milk you used is very creamy. I know you said we should use 2% can you tell me the brand you used for your recipe please? I went to my fab Indian food restaurant and they didn’t have ras malai that day because the milk the bought didn’t turn out good enough for the desert si didn’t serve it.
Dhanyavaad

thnks for your recipe…looks very delicious…definitely gonna try this ,,but i find it very hard to make the rasgullas..it would be better if u had shown how to make the rasgullas not how to put them in the milk at last which is very easy part..anyways….thnks again…

Hello ma’am,
I tried your recipe and it turned out really well. I added a dash of saffron which has given this dish an awesome color an aroma
Just one thing, I kneaded paneer really well and it was good till I put the balls into boiling milk. After cooling down, they have become less spongy then I expected. Can you please tell me where should I rectify ?

Manjula Aunty ji- First of all when i see you, my dadi ji come infront of my eyes…..Secondly- I made ras malai for my family today, every body in my home liked it …. i think i should nt learn cook ing from my mother bcoz i love to see ur videos…. and i love youu…

manjula! you are awesome!! i love your video’s and have made your gulab jamun’s and going to try your rasgulla recipe next. question: some of my gulab jamun’s turn out too soft and break in the syrup. is it because the heat is too high?

Manjula aunty,
Thank yu for the recepie, n the step by step you do on “You Tube” there very easy ti make, n they came our very delicious. It only took me 3 times to get it right, but it was all worth it. Thank you. 🙂

Hi Manjulaji,
I follow the recipe and made Ras Malai for the first time and its perfect. Thanks for this recipe. My husband is diabetic so i kept 4 patties aside and instead of adding sugar both the time I added artificial sugar tablets, and it turn out perfect with it. Now my husband can eat his favorite Indian Dessert. Thanks again.

Manju Auntie thank you so much for posting this recipe and video. My birthday was Thursday and I made some Ras Malai for my birthday, it tasted so wonderful. My family thought I bought it from the store. 🙂 The only little problem I had was when I put all 12 in the pressure pot at one time they did not have enough room to double in size. Next time I will put 6 in the pressure pot at a time. How long will I have to cook it for if I put 6 in the pressure pot at a time? Should I cook it for the same 7 min. after it starts to whistle? I don’t want to pressure it too much. It came out perfect when I did all 12. Thanks.

Hi Manjula Aunty,
Your You Tube recepie for Ras Malai is so easy to follow. I am not a cook. I follow the instructions and prepared so many times ras malai, and also served to the guests. My wife and the guests love it ! It is so delicious. It is better than Verka, Deep, and Nanak.

We could never imagine that homemade rasmalai can turn out to be this perfect. Videos are really very helpful. Myself and my husband made this and it turned out to be very good one. Thank you very much.

Your website has now become my go-to site for Bengali sweets. I have made rasmalai twice for parties and everyone loved it! I doubled the recipe and made 24. I have made sandesh as well – it turned out great. Thanks!

Hello aunti manjula, ,,,i am kulvir,,i like ur all recipes very much,,,i like the way u cook show us very delicious recipes..thanku very much,To give us all indian recipes taste not in india all of the world,,,thanku very much,,,,

I have made Ras Malai but it doesn’t turn out smooth and spongy.
Is the process of kneading the paneer very important in making it smooth and spongy? How long should i knead. Would you recommend using the food processor or hand mixer to knead the paneer? Thank you.

I made rasmalai today and everything was going perfectly fine.. I followed all the instructions and the rasmalai looked exactly they way it is supposed to, and texture of the patties was perfect. HOWEVER, when I excitedly went to taste it, the patties tasted terrible. They were bitter and left bad taste in the mouth. I used fresh milk and all fresh ingredients (except lemon juice from the bottle). Do you have any idea what I did wrong??? please help!

Samar, did the milk burn at all on the bottom of the pan while cooking to make the paneer? Or maybe the lemon juice was too tart. I personally only use vinegar to make paneer. If everything was fresh, something must have happened during the cooking process. The only other thing I can think of is if the cooking vessel gave off a “taste”.

Hi auntie,
I luv ur recipes ..
I tried this recipe once before n it turned out gr8 .. But today I was making pander n it didn’t curdle .. Whenever I tried to strain it , all of it went thru the colander .. I put more lemon juice n vinegar also .. But finally I had to throw it away .. What was I doing wrong this time ..

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Thank you so much Manjula! I made a very yummy (nut free) Ras Malai a while back, I never thought I could do it. Now I am addicted to your recipes and easy to follow videos. Thank you for helping me learn how to cook my favorite foods! You are wonderful! Namaste-Kate-Ashley S.